Why Google Should Buy Snapchat

Project Glass, Google's big experiment in wearable computing, is
not about what you think it is.

Google
has a plan for the device that could transform how we
share images, and it's got the hardware. Now it just needs a
reason for people to use the hardware.

And a controversial startup called Snapchat could fit Google's
plans as smoothly as a Project Glass headset slips on your head.

Most observers have assumed that the point of Google Glass is to
call up information on a heads-up display. After all, Google's
all about search, right?

But the first purpose Babak Parviz, a key engineer on the
project, cited for Google Glass in a recent interview is enabling
"pictorial communications"—communicating through photos or video.

Communicating through photos? That sounds an awful lot like
Instagram,
which is now owned by archrival Facebook.

Or like Snapchat.

Wait, Snapchat—isn't that about sexting?

We thought so, too. But it turns out there are a host of reasons
why people might want to send a photo that isn't stored
permanently online.

Detractors of Snapchat
insist that the only reason why you'd want to send someone a
throwaway picture is because it's something dirty.

Defenders insist
that the real reason for disposable pictures is a
generational shift in behavior: Kids who have grown up with
Facebook ever-present in their lives are keenly aware that
everything they share is watched and scrutinized. Tools like
Snapchat give them freedom to share without consequences, to
communicate without the pressure of every interaction being
drenched with meaning.

Google is designing its Glass headsets with lots of storage and
battery life so they can capture tons of everyday moments—far
more than we currently take with our smartphones.

A lot of those photos and videos are going to be poorly framed,
ugly, fuzzy, or otherwise imperfect. They'd tank among the
cute-dog-and-pretty sunset Instagram set. They won't be the
kind of thing you want to go down on your permanent Internet
record. But they may be meaningful to your close friend and
family.

The output of Google Glass, in other words, will be the perfect
content for a service like Snapchat.

Google could easily clone Snapchat and build disposable-sharing
features into its Google+ social network. That will probably go
about as
disastrously as Facebook's attempt to clone Snapchat with its
Poke app.

We think it would be smarter to snap up the team who tapped into
this teenage shift in zeitgeist and let them run
semi-independently, as Google did with YouTube—only integrating
as it makes sense.